Monkeynotions

This morning I was having lunch with a friend who has been product manager at many stellar companies which have focused on building social communities. He said something interesting:

“You don’t have to be a passionate member of that community in order to create a product for them, in fact I think passionate community members will not make the best product for the community they belong to”

At first I thought the guy was off his rocker, but he went on to explain how the guys who started YouTube weren’t A/V geeks, it didn’t seem like Caterina Fake was an avid photographer, nor did it seem like Tom was really into high school kids for MySpace. They loved fostering the community and seeing it grow. I realized he had a point:

1. The passionate community member ends up building something for himself where he is at, creating a possibly alientating environment. What if I’m not as *hardcore* can I still be a part of the community?

2. The passionate community member becomes a psuedo-expert and is not open to how other things can be ran. I am right because I am a part of this community for so long.

3. The passionate community member has more vested in the community and thus be inclined to fear failing. If I fail I may not be a true member of the community.

Passion about the right thing is essential, but passion around the wrong thing can be murderous to a community.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 10:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.